"Physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates," says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic surgery and other body modifying techniques will effectively homogenise our appearance.

Shoot forward in time to the present and I have been wondering why it is that such a plainly doomed endeavour as trying to homogenise Europe into a single state acquires such pseudo religious adherence.